Guess everyone’s got a price tag, including the Beastie Boys.

The Beastie Boys have long been adamant about keeping their music off of advertisements, despite the guaranteed financial windfall. The group has even sued multiple brands to scrub their music from spots, while refusing to license any and all high-priced offers. One legal battle, waged against Monster Beverage Corp., resulted in a decision valued at more than $2 million (and a subsequent out-of-court settlement).

This was about the Beastie Boys’ core values towards capitalism, creativity, and never selling out, no matter how big the jackpot. Beastie Boys member Adam Yauch, aka MCA, even prohibited any commercial licensing of the group’s music in his will (Yauch died in 2012). The $6.4 million trust, assumed by Yauch’s wife in 2012, explicitly forbade any use of the Beastie Boys’ music in any advertisement, period. “It’s a pretty bold move that cements Yauch’s ideological reputation, considering the amount of money there is to be made by corporations likely desperate to use the Beastie Boys’ trademark sound in their commercials,” Pitchfork declared at the time.

Which sort of makes it surprising that the popular Beastie Boys song ‘Sabatoge’ is now a centerpiece for the trailer for the upcoming Star Trek Beyond movie, in theaters this month. Not only is ‘Sabatoge’ a critical part of this massive commercial advertisement for a multi-million dollar, for-profit Hollywood blockbuster film, it’s referenced by the actors themselves right at the beginning.

Take a look.

All of which blatantly contradicts with the Beastie Boys repeated vows to never, ever license their music for any advertisement. And, seriously undercuts years of moral high-horsing against base commercialism in music. In a lawsuit against GoldieBlox in 2014, a company that used the track ‘Girls’ without permission, the remaining Beasties grandstanded after winning a court victory:

“Make no mistake, your video is an advertisement that is designed to sell a product and long ago, we made a conscious decision not to permit our music and/or name to be used in product ads.”

Even more pronounced was Yauch himself, who specifically declared in his will that “in no event may my image or name or any music or any artistic property created by me be used for advertising purposes.”

All of which makes the inclusion of ‘Sabatoge’ in a massive advertisement perhaps the biggest sellout of the decade. And worse, a direct slap against the wishes of an important Beastie Boys member, one who doesn’t really have a vote.

Update, 6:30 am PT: Several people have noted that the Beastie Boys previously licensed ‘Sabotage’ for earlier Star Trek movies, which wasn’t mentioned in the first version of this article. But I’m not sure if that helps or hurts the Beastie Boys’ case here: after all, a movie synchronization license straddles the line on ‘advertising’ (it’s a commercial licensing that helps to sell a product, after all). And here, it’s clearly used in a major commercial.

Image adapted from an original by Michael Morel, licensed and transformed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC by 2.0).

I think the Beastie Boys see licensing music for a movie a lot different than for a consumer product. A movie is an artistic creation not unlike their music. While including it in the ad may blur the line a little, I think it still holds that true that the Beastie Boys are not selling out. In addition their music has been used in several movies before MCA passed away as well.

if poor paul had googled “beastie boys star trek” b4 spending an hour or so photo-shopping his ultimate visual witticism, maybe he would have thought twice. the only thing sabo’d here is his credibility. paul you suck hard.

Weak. Investigate, research, interview, then report (speculate)…is this a blog or a new org? Yes, I know you’ve corrected the record about the original 2009 movie including Sabotage in the opening scene, but we’re still worried about the moral dilemma of “selling out?” Maybe MCA’s wife had a change of heart, maybe the first contract included all future Star Trek movies for X # of years (which was signed 3 years prior to his death), and/or maybe the B Boys never received a dime…what if they donated the song to their favorite TV/Movie franchise? How can 1 band member override 2 other? They were huge fans of Star Trek, doesn’t surprise me. Watch “Ch-Check It Out” No worries, the article did it’s job, made Google headlines and attracted 7 people to comment.

Just to clarify, I wasn’t correcting anything, just added that the song was used in earlier Star Trek films. Frankly, I’m not sure if that even helps the argument that the Beastie Boys didn’t sell out (according to their own declared and sell-publicized values). That’s really the point of this piece.

I agree. It seems like the band sold out. The cheesy use of Sabotage in ST: Beyond made me cringe. The real sabotage is the band’s image. This wasn’t an auteur indie film with a gritty message, it was an overrated popcorn blockbuster aimed at an international audience with the edges dulled so as not to have untranslatable nuance. Maybe no nuance. The band’s sellout is made even more comical and contradictory based on their previous stances against commercialism. Yes, they got the right to change their minds. I get the right to evaluate whether changing their minds changes my opinion. It does.

I give the article a “C-“, give the title a “D” and give the URL name a “F”.

You can have whatever opinion you want, Paul, but leaving out the fact that the song was already in the previous Star Trek movie is bad journalism and really destroys the entire conceit of the article. Also, any person who is a Star Trek fan and a Beastie Boys fan will immediately point out the obvious: Its not a sellout if they are just taking the opportunity to have the honor of having their music featured in the series that is an obvious influence on their music and lyrics. I know that when I heard Sabotage in the last movie I was like “yeaaaaaahhhh!!” And fully enjoyed the scene of the movie partially because of the inclusion of one of my favorite band’s music in the movie.Its literally no surprise that the song would again be used in the promotion of the new movie.

Maybe you are not a Star Trek fan or a sci fi nerd, so just don’t get the difference between not wanting your music used to promote say Walmart vs the honor of having your music in a big awesome movie in a genre/series you like.

Anyway, I’m really over your sensationalist click bait type “journalism”. Congratulations that you have enough good writers on your staff that I haven’t canceled my daily email from you.

Also, your website works horribly slugish-ly on Firefox AND Chrome on my Dell Optiplex 390 Desktop computer. Just FYI. Other sites do not have the same problem. Kudos to you for annoying me so much I worked through it anyway, probably won’t do that again either.

This is not a Commercial license so it does not blatantly contradict the statements contained in MCA’s will. In the actual world of music licensing this is a Trailer license. Considering that the song was licensed in previous Star Trek films, this may just be Paramount exercising an option contained within a Theatrical license deal. A Trailer license and a Commercial license are two completely different deals.

You are entitled to your opinion that the Beastie Boys are hypocrites but your attempt to trash them as the “biggest sellout of the decade” and sell that as “news” is weak AF.

As an aside, I am entitled to my opinion that this attempt at a “think piece” article is actually just tabloid style click bait “journalism” – which is what I’ve come to expect from this website. DMN is the TMZ of the music industry.

My point is this was a Trailer license not a Commercial license. I’m not giving a suggestion of what the Beastie Boys policy should be nor am I trying to interpret their words in my favor to generalize them as sell outs in order to harm their reputation or support my argument that they are hypocrites. You are.
Less muckraking. More journalism. Please.

I’m not getting the sense you excelled in debate club. So, what you’re arguing is that the Beastie Boys didn’t break their vow never to use their music in a commercial, because this specific commercial was licensed through a trailer license?

I’m getting the sense that you excelled in Sensational Journalism Club.
The Beastie Boys obviously do not define a film trailer as a product ad. Get over it. This is not news. Stop trolling your own shitty article and go find some REAL NEWS to write about!

Eyeroll doesn’t understand that a film trailer is a product ad. The product is the film. Something tells me eyeroll will try to find a definition of “product” and “ad” which excludes films as “products” and trailers as “ads.” This should be fun to watch.

A film use of their music is in no way out of the realm of possible licensing given the avocation of Adam Yauch, who dba Nathaniel Hornblower, made a fairly significant impact on filmmaking and music and who co-founded a wonderful independent distribution company Oscilloscope (http://www.oscilloscope.net/films/) and I will quote their ‘about us’ statement:

“OSCILLOSCOPE LABORATORIES has three divisions. It is like a three-headed dragon. The brains of the three heads are designed to think uniquely. While O-SCOPE PICTURES is thinking about distributing films, O-SCOPE PRODUCTIONS is thinking about making films, and the third head is mostly thinking about making music.”

“Biggest sellout of the decade”??? Haha…3.5 years to go, let’s hope T Swift joins the iTunes bandwagon. Clearly you misunderstood the bands previous statements. Worst part about this article is that you’re implying that Mike D. and Ad-Rock are not honoring MCA’s wishes. Even if they are, and they’re not…how is that our business?

“…perhaps the biggest sellout of the decade”??? Haha, wow only 3.5 years to go. Let’s hope T Swift joins the iTunes bandwagon.

Worst part of your article is that you’re implying Mike D. and Ad-Rock have dishonored MCA’s wishes. Checkout IMDB’s site, you missed about 109 other credited/un-credited examples. Clearly you misunderstood their statements.

I think you had your sensationalistic idea; the “sell out”, and didn’t see or decided to ignore the nuances. This doesn’t seem to be a classic case of double standards. It sure attracts attention and it “sells”. On the other hand, the equivalence addSynch=filmSynch you draw is BS and is only clear to you because it helps your weak argument.

Paul – interesting points you raise, your article is really appreciated. Hope you can ignore all the negative comments, I’m not sure why people get so angry over these features, you are simply sharing some very relevant and topical news regarding the music placement, licensing etc. and are not making harsh judgments on the Beastie Boys. Anyways, for what it’s worth, I found your post very interesting.

JMA, thanks. Really, I don’t mind the criticism, at the very least it causes me to rethink whatever assumptions I brought into the piece, and consider all angles. I can be a stubborn and inflexible thinker, but I still — after all this discussion — question whether the Beastie Boys went back on their vow never to license to advertisements. You can get into trouble with fine-tuned exceptions and loopholes.